“The Second Machine Age” Is Out of Our Hands, and Will Soon Be in Yours (I Hope)

Erik Brynjolfsson and I found that we weren’t nearly done thinking and writing about technological progress and what it means for businesses, economies, and societies after Race Against the Machine, so we wrote another book.

This one’s called The Second Machine Age, because that’s what we believe we’re heading into. The first machine age was brought on by the Industrial Revolution, and it changed the world like nothing before or since. Until, that is, now.

2MA (as we’re calling it) is available for pre-order now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, and iTunes. The good people at Norton tell us that hardbacks will be in their warehouses by December 30, and should be in bookstores everywhere by the middle of January.

Like all authors that I know, I want everyone to get and read my book. To that end, we’re doing a few things to promote 2MA:

Excerpt. Chapter 1 of 2MA is available for reading and download here. It makes the case that the first machine age was the biggest story in human history, introduces the concept of a second machine age, and outlines the contents and structure of the book.

Book Tour. In late January and early February we’ll be hitting Berkeley, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Washington DC, and New York to talk about the book and answer questions. The tour schedule is here.

Press and Media. There will hopefully be a lot of this. Stay tuned…

Shameless Bribery Special Offer. If you pre-order the book and tell us about it, we’ll both sign a bookplate (with our actual hands – no robot autopen involved) and mail it to you. Details and form are here.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say about The Second Machine Age.